BALANCE OF TRADE

Taranaki Daily News, 22 December 1931, Page 16

BALANCE OF TRADE

THE GOVERNMENT’S DUTY. SPEECH BY MR. THOMAS. '(Wellington Post Representative.) London, Nov. 10. Speaking at Cambridge at the weekend, Mr. J. H. Thomas, Secretary of State for the Dominions, explained his own attitude towards tariffs and what will probably be the attitude of all members of the National Labour Party. Emphasising the importance of adjusting the balance of trade, he said this country had to sit down and very carefully make up her mind either to develop her export trade or to restrict her imports. He was not going into any argument as to any fiscal policy except to say that he would discard both the dogmatic free trader and the tariff reformer who conscientiously believed that all the ills of the world could be cured if we would only adopt some tariff policy. He thought both those dogmatic people must be pushed on one side, and he had no hesitation in saying that it was the duty of the Government to face the fact that our balance of trade was against us and see that it was vital and essential to the community that it should be adjusted. No remedy, whatever it might be, after an examination should be ruled with without 'being given a fair chance, and he believed that the National Government had been given a clear and definite mandate to apply those remedies straightaway.

Britain ought to make herself less dependent upon foreign nations than was the case at present. He did not rule out the possibility of entering into an arrangement with British Colonies and Dominions whereby all the foodstuffs and raw materials that the Mother Country desired could be obtained from them in return for manufactured goods from this country. “In my judgment,” he added, “there not only can be, but there ought to be. and will be closer union within the Empire than ever existed before.” The result of the election was due in a large measure to the fact that the people of this country would never have “quitters.” whether they were Liberal, Labour, Tory, or anything else. The second conclusion he drew was that people were getting fed-up with party politics and party politicians. Mr. Thomas, in replying to a. vote of thanks, referred to his recent breach with “comrades with whom I had spent my whole life,” and continued, “but from the day of the crisis my mind was made up. I could see the issue quite plainly. I have always stood for a policy, and whether it be a capitalist or an employers’ organisation which has set itself up as being greater than the State, I was determined to break that down, and just as I would break a capitalist organisation, so .1 would break a Labour organisation which did not recognise that every organisation and every society must be subordinated to the common interests of all. That is the issue as I saw it from the start.”